Today we ventured to Pooley Bridge.  One of our regular contributors, Lee Benson, has been exploring a few walks in this area and they looked really fun for the kids, so today we discovered Dunmallard Hill.

There are two main pay and display car parks in Pooley Bridge, one on either side of the bridge itself.  However, November through to March you can park for free on the village streets, all day.

The start of the walk is from the car park at GR469245.  There are loads of ducks and swans here and it’s a nice place to feed the ducks if you fancy.

If you wish to simply circumnavigate Dunmallard Hill, then go through the gate next to the large sign post and turn either left or right.  This will take you all the way round and back to the car park.  You can also follow one of the paths that takes you to the top from this circular path, if you want to go up the hill.

We decided to walk north east along the bridleway to make a slightly larger loop and take in “roly poly hill”.  If you want to do this route, don’t go through the gate, walk towards the back of the car park and along the river path.

The woods will go up on your left and you will go through a gate into an open field.  This field is awesome for roly polys!  Kids and grown ups enjoyed a bit of letting go down the hill!  Beware of rolling too far, else you’ll end up in the river!! (I’ve marked the roly poly hill in pink on the map photo below)

Continue on a little bit further and turn left and walk up the hill.  Go over the stile to the top right of the field and follow the wall down until you cross another stile on your left.  You can see the woods in front of you.  Head up and left to the entrance to the woods.  From there you can either turn left or right and follow the path round to the car park.

Or if you want to climb to the top of the hill, turn right and after about 50 metres take the left fork.  This will lead you to the top of Dunmallard Hill.  Keep going up until you can no longer go up anymore!  In winter you can see Ullswater poking out through the trees.

From the top follow the clear path straight down.  It’s quite steep but manageable.  Turn left at the bottom and you’ll soon be back at the car park.

It’s about 2.5 miles in total, although if you simply go round Dunmallard, it’s probably less than 2.  We were out for about 2 hours, including snack stops, roly polys and adventures off the sides of the paths!

We stopped off for tea at the Pooley Bridge Inn.  The staff there were very kind and accommodating, asking if we’d like to eat in the pool room/snug so the kids could watch a film on the TV in there.  The food portions were enormous and really delicious.  Great atmosphere and highly recommended.

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